Nearly every day, loud music blares from Dorothea Pelletier’s neighbor’s home, rattling her bedroom windows, waking her up at odd hours and upsetting her elderly, ill husband.
The music has been disturbing her family for three years, she said, but she hasn’t been able to get help from either Taunton police or city hall, despite making about two dozen phone calls and sending letters to complain.
“It’s probably going to drive me insane,” she said. “I’m probably going to end up in a nut house.”
Her concerns escalated over time, as her husband, Wilfred, 76, experienced several medical setbacks, which she said made him more vulnerable to stress.
“He’s had open heart surgery, he’s diabetic, he’s got neuropathy, he’s had surgery on his eyes, he has high blood pressure, he’s dizzy, he’s pale — you can see that,” she said, gesturing toward her husband.
In addition to the almost constant sound of music, she hears other noises.
“They beep the horn every 10 minutes like Morse code,” she recalled. “It woke me up.”
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In an effort to publicly express her frustrations, Pelletier created a large lawn sign, which reads, in red paint: “Sick, elderly man being killed by loud music. City does nothing.”
“They know that he’s sick,” she said. “They know he’s old, and yet they continue to do it.”
But her neighbor denied playing loud music. He said the music is always at a reasonable volume, which he noted is the reason police never find a problem.
“The music is always down,” said Wilfredo Santana. “The cops come over here. They’re always saying, ‘No, I don’t hear music....”
Pelletier said she took her neighbor to court, but didn’t have any luck resolving the issue. She said she’d like to hire an attorney, but can’t afford one.
